Johannesburg - A bottle of ginger ale, a pair of red eyes, and perhaps a bit of bruised pride.
That was what a pair of burglars walked away with when they encountered Zeerust resident Dirk de Waal’s unconventional alarm system.
And they were caught on TV too.
On Monday afternoon, de Waal got a call from his security company telling him that his alarm had been activated.
When he returned home, he was shocked to find his door, kitchen cupboards and fridge open, but almost nothing had been taken. It was only after he checked his CCTV footage that he realised what had happened.
De Waal had set up what he calls a “gas alarm” which when activated remotely will blast intruders who pass by it with a large amount of pepper spray.
In the video footage, the wannabe burglars approached his door at 12.45pm. The men used a pick-axe to break open the door, but minutes later, the gas fired and the men fled outside.
Rather than just give up, the men tried to deactivate the alarm by breaking the electrical box. But because the system works on a battery, the plan failed.
“But they did manage to take a cooldrink,” de Waal told The Star on Friday morning.
He said the alarm system had been developed by his company, after he became fed up with many break-ins at his home since 2005.
De Waal used his CCTV footage to get images of the suspects which he handed over to police. He said when he went with police to the nearby villages, they were unable to track the two people.
However, when he went alone later in the week, he was able to track the addresses of the two men after the community identified them. Although he handed this information over to the police, no arrests have been made.
The Beeld reported on Friday morning that two people had been brought in for questioning and the investigation was continuing.
The Star